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Call on Boldness to Step Back from Busyness. Shabbat Is a Delight

February 9, 2018 By Greg Marcus 2 Comments

Our sages say that Shabbat is a delight. You may know people who love Shabbat and keep it and say they wouldn’t be able to live without it. Shabbat is praised as a taste of the world to come. It is the time for deeper intimacy, for the pleasures of the table, for song, for joy, for true respite.

So why is it so hard to do? It is such a great idea, but hard to make real. Much as we might long for a weekly day off, a true oasis in time, it’s hard!! Our broader culture is all about action and resting is just not part of the program. Regular rest is hard to build into our lives. Yet with diligence and a Mussar trait called Azut d’kedusha – holy boldness – it is possible.

What is holy boldness and why will it help us leap over the barriers to making time for Shabbat? The Hebrew word azut is related to the word oz which means courage or strength. And what is d’kedusha? It is the strength of holiness. And we need that boldness when we want to bring holiness into our lives. For some people, holiness has an odd off-putting tone. While we may want to be spiritual, we are not sure that we want to be holy. But let’s look at the word kedusha one more time. Professor Dov Landau of Bar Ilan University tells us that kedusha is related to the sacred, the wondrous, the elevated, the numinous, the mysterious, and the awesome. Kedusha is an aspect of life that is undefinable. We know it through our hearts and souls, not our intellect.

In the quest for these qualities we can be bold, we must be bold, because we live in the midst of a very secular world. We must be strong, even fierce, in the face of our never ending to-do lists. At the end of the day our task list is often longer than it was at the beginning of the day even though we might have been devoted to taking action all day long.

It is azut d’kedusha that gives us the chutzpah to say “no.” As Shabbat approaches we say that we are off the clock and off the hook. We put down our devices. We let people know that we are entering a world of time spaciousness.

We put aside our many tasks. We laugh at what I call the “just-one-more-thing” syndrome. That’s when we say “I will do just one more thing and then I will turn to the world of rest, then I will stop striving, then I will take that deep breath and trust that all will be well when I step off my treadmill.” But, the just one more thing turns into finishing ten more emails, and a few more texts, and perhaps a last check on social media. And then, the long wished for blessing of our oasis in time gets eaten up by our wish to just get on top of the many claims for our attention.

The word Shabbat means stop. That’s it. Just stop. So, now, just for a moment, carve out a little bit of time for your Shabbat rest. Find the time in your calendar when you are determined to turn off your phone, slow your movements, slow your breathing, and just for a little bit of time, that you set aside, ready or not, let go of achieving and turn to rest, to reflect and to play. Then, Shabbat is a delight.

This is a guest post is by Marilyn Paul, Ph.D. She is an organizational change facilitator and Mussar teacher. Dr. Paul has taught Mussar in Jerusalem, Berkeley and the Boston area. She is the author of “An Oasis in Time: How a Day of Rest Can Save Your Life ” and “It’s Hard to Make a Difference When You Can’t Find Your Keys: The Seven-Step Path to Becoming Truly Organized.” Please visit her website www.marilynpaul.com to learn more.

This Sin Explains Michigan State’s Decisions About Nassar

January 31, 2018 By Greg Marcus 1 Comment

In the last post, I explained how, the administration of Michigan State University in 2014 did not learn the lessons of the sexual abuse scandal at Penn State just a few years earlier. This sin explains Michigan State’s decisions: Idolatry. As I shared in my last blog post, they fell into corporate idolatry, and as a result dozens of additional girls were sexually abused because they allowed Larry Nassar to continue to see patients after Amanda Thomashow reported that he rubbed her breasts and vagina during a medical exam.

Here is an excerpt from my book “Busting Your Corporate Idol: Self Help for the Chronically Overworked” that explains what went wrong at Penn State, which serves as an example of what probably went wrong at Michigan State. We don’t have all the info yet, but when we do I suspect we’ll see similar dynamics. As background, Corporate idolatry is a modern form of idolatry in which we do what is best for the institution instead of the ethical guidelines given in the Torah and subsequent Jewish teachings. From a Mussar perspective, we are particularly focused on the guidelines of character and personal conduct.

As Mussar practitioners we have a responsibility to proactively try to prevent this thing from happening again. Read on to understand institutional pressures towards immoral action.

Why People at Penn State Fell into Idolatry

The 2011 sexual abuse scandal at Penn State University represents a sobering and upsetting example of what can happen when people fall into corporate idolatry. For over forty years Joe Paterno was the football coach at Penn State, and was widely respected as a leader, teacher, and philanthropist. How is it that Paterno and the top officials at Penn State University did not report assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky to the police for child abuse after Sandusky was discovered allegedly sodomizing a boy in the locker room shower? One explanation is corporate idolatry––Penn State University propagated a culture that put the interests of the institution (its football program in particular) ahead of the welfare of people. The high level of news coverage and detailed written reports allow insights into how corporate idolatry impacted people at all levels of the university.

In both 1998 and 2001, Paterno and the top officials at Penn State University did not report assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky to the police for child abuse. In 2012 Sandusky was convicted of forty-five counts that ranged from “endangering the welfare of children” to “involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.” Some of these crimes happened after 2001, and would have been prevented if Paterno, and other university officials had informed the police.

According to the report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, Penn State had a “reverence for football program ingrained at all levels of the university.”11 This started from the top, with a “president who discouraged discussion and dissent,” and included the attendant who switched off CNN on the TV in the Penn State student center just before the Freeh Report was released.

Penn State University has a culture of idolatry because the culture prioritized football over the safety of children. Does this mean that everyone associated with the university are a bunch of evil idolators? Not at all. But, everyone at PSU is impacted by the pervasive foot- ball-first value system. And, people who opposed the football-first value system paid a price. For example, former VP of Student Affairs Vicky Triponey “butted heads with Paterno and his football supporters,” and according to The Daily Beast, was fired for investigating players for allegedly sexual assaults. Triponey’s boss, former PSU president Graham Spanier, allegedly gave her poor performance reviews because she “wasn’t fitting in with the ‘Penn State way.’”

Because the Freeh report, was based on interviews with hundreds of people, we have a unique opportunity to understand why people participated in Penn State’s football-first value system. I have seen these same four causes of idolatry in the stories I heard from the corporate world, as well as in the literature that discusses idolatry in the ancient world. make it possible to tease out the different reasons people commit idolatry

For personal advantage. I think many of the university officers embraced the culture of idolatry because it gave them perks, power, and wealth. According to the Freeh Report, these men “exhibited a striking lack of empathy for Sandusky’s victims by failing to inquire as to their safety and well-being.”16 They were more concerned with the reputation of the institution, and by extension their own reputations. I suspect that Paterno and the others used rationalizations to ease their consciences, and saw themselves as doing the right thing.
Out of habit and blind obedience. Timothy Curley, the former athletic director, is described as “a State College native with a long family history at Penn State.” Some at PSU referred to Curley as “Paterno’s errand boy,” and others characterized him as “loyal to a fault to university management and the chain of command; someone who followed instruction regardless of the consequences.”17
Out of fear. In the fall of 2000, a janitor saw Sandusky with a boy in the shower. By all accounts, the janitor was devastated by what he had seen but was afraid he would lose his job if he spoke up. He said the following to investigators, “I know Paterno has so much power, [and] if he wanted to get rid of someone, I would have been gone … football runs this univer- sity, and the university would have closed ranks to protect the football program at all costs.”18
By error. On November 9, 2011, Joe Paterno was fired from Penn State, and thousands of students rioted, chanting, “One more game.” This is what philosophers call “Idolatry by Error.” Idolatry by error is a behavior that persists due to cultural traditions whose foundation is based on incorrect information. These kids were raised on the notion that Paterno was a great leader who taught his players how to be great men. In other words, the protesters thought that Paterno had been scapegoated and that they were standing up against a great injustice.These same four reasons: personal advantage, habit, fear, and error help explain why people practice idolatry throughout the corporate world.

This excerpt from Busting Your Corporate Idol: Self Help For the Chronically Overworked was reprinted with the permission of the author. The full book is available on Amazon. Click here to learn more.

Three Mussar Traits To Help You Prevent Another Larry Nassar

January 31, 2018 By Greg Marcus Leave a Comment

Simone Biles, is a survivor of abuse by Larry Nassar.

The case of Larry Nassar is painful and horrible on many levels. Nassar will spend the rest of his life in jail for sexually abusing over 150 girls. And those girls will spend the rest of their lives dealing with the trauma that was inflicted on them. It is my hope that by writing this article, other people who suffered abuse can find the courage to talk about what happened to them, because talking about what happened is a key step towards healing. Here is an article on general healing, and a second article that focuses on healing in sexual contexts. Both articles carry an important message – survivors of sexual trauma can heal. It isn’t their fault, and there are many professionals available to help.

I am particularly angry and upset about the actions by Michigan State University officials who covered up Nassar’s abuse. (See this article in The Atlantic for the full details.) Clearly, they did not learn the lessons from the Penn State sexual abuse scandal, in which an assistant football coach was raping young boys on campus. As people who practice Mussar, we work to stay connected to our ethical traditions, and try to become alert to rationalizations that can lead us to stay silent, or even enable horrible abuse to continue.

Which brings us to the a second reason for this article: We must never allow loyalty to an institution to overcome our personal ethics. This is a modern form of idolatry, which I wrote about extensively in my first book Busting Your Corporate Idol: Self Help For the Chronically Overworked. Idolatry is creating an intermediary between yourself and the divine, and allowing the intermediary to set the terms of right and wrong.

Kristine Moore was the MSU employee in charge of investigating Amanda Thomashow’s complaint that Nassar massaged her breasts and vagina during a medical exam. Moore only consulted internal colleagues of Nassar and then prepared two different reports – 0ne for Thomashow,saying she didn’t know the difference between a medical procedure and sexual abuse. There was also a second, secret internal report that acknowledged the trauma inflicted by the doctor. In the end, Moore chose to protect the interests of the University over the safety of its students.

It is far too easy to say “I would never do such a thing.” I hope that is the case. But for many years I was caught up in corporate idolatry, and I put the needs of the company in front of the needs of people on a regular basis. No one’s life was ruined, but it was not ethical and my choices resulted in unnecessary pain for myself, my family, other employees, and our customers. Here are three Mussar traits to help you avoid the trap of Corporate Idolatry, and prevent another ethical lapse that enabled Larry Nasser

First Mussar Trait: Honor

Before you act, think of the impact of your actions on people, including yourself and your family. If the company wants you to skip a family event (or even worse, you feel you must skip the event for work, even if no one asks you to), think again.

Second Mussar Trait: Truth

Be on the lookout for rationalizations, and be honest with yourself. Have you ever had a thought like “Our company/University/Institution does so much good work, we need to protect it’s reputation.” If you have, it can open the door to rationalizations, like the one that led Kristine Moore to consult only with Nassar’s colleagues to find out if his exams were medically kosher.

Third Mussar Trait: Holiness.

It says in the Torah “You shall be holy.” It isn’t always clear what this means. As a rule of thumb, you can think of it as the quest to be Holy as living an ethical life according to the teachings of the Torah. This may be unfamiliar to you. Remember that building your character according to Torah’s teachings is striving to be a Mensch. The second commandment teaches us not to create graven images, those intermediaries I referred to above. Remember that your primary duty is to follow a higher calling – you can think of it as the Divine, Humanity, universal ethics. Whatever the case, if you often hear “you need to do what is best for the company,” beware! Nod your head politely, and then look to your heart and conscience for guidance on how to act.

What do you think of these Mussar traits? Will they really help us prevent a monster from hurting people longer than he should?

Ask yourself the following questions: Are there unethical people you know of who are unchecked? Are they sexually harassing others, acting as a bully, or treating vendors poorly? These people may not be monsters like Nassar, but their unethical conduct is unacceptable, and if you allow it to continue, other people may be hurt. In fact, when someone like Nassar and their ilk go down, they take down everyone around them.

See next article: This Sin Explains Michigan State’s Decisions About Nassar to learn more about corporate idolatry at Penn State and Michigan State.

Image by Agência Brasil Fotografias via Flickr CC

Silence: A Mussar Practice For Trump Angst

October 16, 2017 By Greg Marcus 18 Comments

Would you like a mussar practice for Trump angst? First a question: If you hate Trump so much, why do you keep talking about him?

I asked that question to a close relative over the weekend. We were sitting together, watching TV when he said, “I am smarter than that guy, referring to a sports expert.” He had a little grin on his face, and from the way he said it, I could tell that he was lampooning Trump’s statement that he was smarter than Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

In another conversation about the suffering in Puerto Rico, someone said “the problem is that Puerto Rico is an island, surrounded by water.” She looked at me expectantly, with almost a hunger for me to engage.

A few months ago, I posted something on Twitter, and out of the blue someone tweeted the “That explains Trump.” I made no response, and I imagine a great disappointment in the poster that I did not take the bait.

In each case, it appeared that the person was looking for me to justify and feed their anger. I see the exchanges on Facebook all the time. One person rants, and their friends jump in, either agreeing or disagreeing. Everyone is angry.

If this sounds at all like you, let me ask you: Is this the life you want to live? Is this what Judaism teaches us, to feed anger and disaffection? I know, we are supposed to speak out against injustice. But what injustice are we speaking about when we bring up Trump out of the blue to make fun of him? Here, you are just feeding the anger within.

The Talmud teaches “Whosoever yields to anger, if he be a wise man his wisdom leaves him, and if he be a prophet his prophecy leaves him.” (Pesachim 66b). In modern language, the Talmud is saying that when we get angry, we don’t think straight, and we do things we may regret. I know that when I am angry, I say and do some really hurtful things to the people I care most about.

In addition, insulting Trump instead of talking about actual issues amounts to gossip, which in Hebrew is known as lashon ha’ra. The Talmud teaches that harmful speech kills three people – the speaker, the listener, and the one being talked about. Rabbi Joseph Teluskin argues that avoiding gossip allows the speaker and listener to form a closer relationship because they are forced to focus on each other. Thus, when we bring up Trump at random times, we lose an opportunity to really connect and get to know other people. It may feel good to share misery, but it won’t actually make you feel better. And it won’t help you form community.

Instead of giving in to the urge to mock Trump, practice the Soul Trait of Silence. In the Mussar classic Cheshbon Ha’nefesh, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Levin wrote, “Before you open your mouth, be silent and reflect: What benefit will my speech bring to me or others?” One way to begin this Mussar practice is to write Levin’s phrase on an index card or sticky note, and put it on your bed table where you will see it in the morning. Read, chant, and/or contemplate it for a minute to begin your day. This will make you more aware of thoughtless speech in general. Next, stop and reflect before you say anything. As you become more mindful of your speech, you can choose to avoid the mocking speech we discussed above.

Lets consider a world in which you don’t bring up Trump at random times. It opens the door to focus on positive things that bring you energy and joy. I’ve seen it happen again and again – a positive conversation gets derailed into anger, frustration, and cynicism. Instead of allowing your negative side to bring the conversation down with insults, look for an opportunity to bring the conversation up. Staying present and plugged into the world is both empowering and life affirming. After all, our mission is Tikkun Olam, repair of the world. And mocking speech never repaired anything

Mussar has soul traits to help us focus on Tikkun Olam in the face of anger and despair. It is not enough simply to say “No Trump thoughts” or “keep it positive.” A full mussar practice for Trump angst requires a strategy to focus on something else.

Come back next week to read a post on moving from anger to Tikkun Olam.

Want to know which soul traits you need to work on? Take the Soul Trait Profile Quiz.

Feeling Compassion For a Gun Enthusiast After Vegas Shooting: A Mussar Practice Moment

October 5, 2017 By Greg Marcus Leave a Comment

Feeling Compassion For a Gun Enthusiast After Vegas Shooting?

I am not a gun guy, but somehow I felt compassion for a gun enthusiast who was talking about the Las Vegas shooting. I went on Facebook Live to talk about it, and how my feelings relate to the soul traits of Compassion and Abstinence. The back story.

I listened to an interview on All Things Considered with a gun enthusiast who was clearly upset about the shooting. This is someone who owns a lot of guns. He freely admits that there is no reason for someone to have that many guns in a hotel room. And he was clearly upset about the shootings in Las Vegas, Newton CT and at the Pulse in Florida. In fact, he felt responsible, because he believes in responsible gun ownership, and it was painful to him that “one of their own” did such unspeakable evil. Mary Louise Kelly deserves an award for the quality of the interview, because she asked questions without judgement. (Listen here, starting around 5:30). The man explained that he once fired a fully automatic weapon at a gun range under supervision, and he liked it. It gave a rush, like driving a fast car. His argument was this: why should I be punished for the actions of one person?

I’ve heard that argument by lawmakers previously, and dismissed it out of hand. But here was a real person saying the words with feeling and pain. In that past I would have felt judgement, thinking “People are dying, and you don’t want to do anything because you think guns are fun?” But none of that as I listened, perhaps because I am practicing the Mussar Soul Trait of Compassion this week. Compassion teaches us to be close to another, so close that you feel what they feel. And I felt the anguish, and the seductive power of the rush.

I was reminded of the Soul Trait of Abstinence, as explained in The Path of the Just by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto. (Watch starting around 4:00.) Abstinence is about giving something up on the path to self improvement. Gun owners can voluntarily give up something they like. Before we jump on them for not doing so, or for fighting to keep their ability for a fun hobby, lets look in the mirror. Are you ready to stop driving fast because another driver driving that fast might kill someone? Give a watch to see what I say about sexual abstinence too.

I still don’t agree with his position, but at least I understand it. He is not crazy, and is no more selfish than the rest of us. And I think I could talk to him in a respectful way. Being sympathetic to his point of view will go a long way towards getting him to take the high road, or at least understand that we have nothing against him if we want safety regulations on gun ownership.

compassion for a gun enthusiasts — This woman enjoys shooting. That does not make her a bad person.

Healing and reconciliation in this country will only take place when we learn to understand our fellow Americans.

Have a listen. Tell me what you feel. Can you feel compassion for gun a enthusiast? Do you get it now in a new way? Agree? Disagree?

Reply below and let me know.